A group of penguins has been enjoying playing with an iPad game at an aquarium in America.

Watch the video of penguin gaming sessions on an iPad (credit: Hugh Ryono, Aquarium of the Pacific, YouTube)

The Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach, California, is always looking at innovative and creative ways to interact with its animals – and staff came up with the idea of introducing an iPad game to its Magellanic penguins.

A few curious birds – Jeremy and Newsom – tried out the game originally designed for cats when it was introduced to them in 2013.

Newsom used his beak to try and pick up the virtual mouse featured in the game. He appeared to enjoy the squeak the mouse made everyone he put his beak on the mouse and went on to score 1600 in the game, according to an aquarium blog post.

Since then, more of the birds have tried out the game. “The animals all started playing with it. We even find they get so engrossed we can examine then,” said Sara Mandel at the aquarium who originally tried out the game at home for her cats, reported the Mail online news site.

Enjoyable for the birds

The Aquarium of the Pacific is a non-profit educational institution that provides homes for many rescued animals or those that cannot be released into the wild. Many of its Magellanic penguins were rescued in Brazil and rehabilitated at the centre and are part of an important breeding programme.

“Our animals are very important to us. If the birds showed any signs of stress interacting with this app, we would remove it immediately,” said the aquarium on its YouTube site.

“Based on our careful observations, it appears to be very enjoyable for the birds.”

You can read more about this story on the Aquarium of the Pacific blogs site by clicking here.